3 months earlier, I had no Marketing cloud experience, I moved to an official Salesforce Marketing Cloud partner company, so this certification was on cards since then.

Even before I joined, I started my learning process. It took me 2 months to prepare for this certification as a complete newbie to Marketing Cloud. The exam wasn’t easy for me (though many say it is the easiest exam) as I didn’t have full-time hands-on experience of working on Marketing Cloud project while attempting this certification.

Breakdown of Score

Before I talk about how I prepared for this certification here’s a breakdown of how much I scored on the exam.

Since we know the topics from the certification guide (column #1) and the % of weight for each topic (column #2), I calculated the expected number of questions for each topic (column #3) out of 60 questions. Salesforce sent my topic wise scoring via email that I secured after the exam (Column #4), so I calculated how many questions I got them right (column #5).

Topic

% of Weightage (from the guide)

Expected No. of Questions

My Exam Result in %

No. of Correct Answers

Content Creation and Email Delivery

18%

11

90.90%

10

Tracking and Reporting

6%

4

75.00%

3

Marketing Automation

19%

11

81.81%

9

Email Marketing Best Practices

15%

9

88.88%

8

Email Message Design

13%

8

37.50%

3

Subscriber Data and Management

29%

17

76.47%

13

60

46

In total, I got 46 answers correct out of 60 – that is 76.67%. Not bad. Pass!!

Topics & Weightage:First thing is to get acquainted with the topics from the Salesforce certification guide and have an understanding of how many questions you’d get from each topic. As mentioned in the above table, there are 6 Topics.

Reporting & Tracking is the lowest – Just 6%. So around 4 questions.

Subscriber Data Management is the highest – 29% – 17 questions.

The remaining 4 topics are between 13% to 19% – around 10 questions per each topic

Content Creation and Email Delivery (18%)

Marketing Automation (19%)

Email Marketing Best Practices (15%)

Email Message Design (13%)

Trailhead: Obviously I started the preparation with Trailhead. There are only 3 modules for Marketing Cloud (MC). Reading and understanding these 3 modules from Trailhead covers 15-18%of your certification.

Marketing Cloud Basics: This gives the right intro to what this is all about. This doesn’t cover any certification topics but just gives a general idea of the cloud.

Marketing Cloud Studios & Builders: This gives an intro to the tools of MC. Focus on the Email Studio part. Do not go deep into the Journey builder but this is a must-read. There are a couple of introductory questions on why or when Journey builder is used in the certification.

Email Marketing Strategies:The 3rd and the most important module This is very useful and covers the Email Marketing Best Practices topic of the certification (9-10 questions from this).

Update Feb 2018: 3 More Trailhead modules released for Marketing Cloud which helps in this certification

Official Salesforce Marketing Cloud Basics Youtube Playlist: Salesforce has an official Youtube channel specifically for Marketing Cloud, called “Marketing Cloud Official”. They have a special playlist named “Marketing Cloud Basics” where they talk about all the basics of Email Studio. This is very useful as the videos show the marketing cloud user interface while explaining the all the features of marketing cloud in detail. These are just 2-3 mins videos, 13 of them (to this day). So you should be able to complete them in an hour – This is fast-paced learning!

Read the Help Document:You can skip this step as this would not really help in certification directly at this stage. I preferred to do this as I wanted a deep knowledge and understanding of everything as eventually I know I’d work on MC. So, I chose the hard path. Salesforce provides the help documentation for marketing cloud. Go to the “Getting Started with Email Studio” topic from the left menu in the help documentation. For the next 10 days, I read through all of this, yes the entire of Email Studio documentation. Though not everything makes sense the first time, this will give you an idea of what’s in MC. I made notes for each topic, the things I feel are important to me. It didn’t help for the exam but from a learning perspective, it did.

Free Official Salesforce Online Training Courses: Salesforce provides free online training material. To get these, login to your any Developer Account (Not marketing cloud, your Sales cloud Developer account). If you don’t have a Developer account, you can sign-up here! This account is free for life. After logging in, go to Help (from upper right corner menu). Click on Training & Certification. And apply the filter ‘Marketing Cloud’. There are 9 courses available for free to study. These are some amazing content. (You can skip the Social Studio ones for this certification preparation.)

If you have Marketing Cloud account, you can log in to your Marketing Cloud Account and go through Help (from top right corner menu, after logging in) and get to the Training courses.

Free APAC Certification Preparation Webinars:Salesforce University (okay now it is merged with Trailhead, so need to refer to it as Trailhead also) has started conducting free certification preparation webinars for everyone. This is an initiative from the Asia Pacific (APAC) team of Salesforce University Trailhead, so these webinar timings are more suited to the Asia time zone. These preparation webinars are not just for Marketing Cloud, they do for all other Salesforce cloud certifications including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud. These are 5-hour sessions and is quite interactive. The instructor takes you through the certification topics, explains each topic, with a live demo, giving you tips to clear the certification. This webinar is purely for certification purposes. You can register for the upcoming webinars using this link. I keep updating this link as soon Salesforce releases the dates for next webinars. I cannot share this material with you as this is Private & Confidential.

It is important to make notes during the webinar as you won’t have access to it later.

After the webinar, do a review of what topics you need to study more. Refer to the Help document and go through those topics.

By this stage, you would cover the entire certification topics and should be almost ready for the exam in the next 2 weeks. The next 2 weeks you need to check mock exams and understand the question formats.

Sample questions from my exam:Are you ready for the exam? Let me check. I will list down the topics from which my questions were based on. If you think you can answer, you are ready. If not, don’t worry, just check the Help document to understand more on these topics (or write a comment on this post for any clarification).

Given a scenario, which one to use – Suppression List or Exclusion list?

Mock Tests:You can check for mock test available on the internet. Don’t completely rely on them, as the question formats are not completely in line with what you get in your exam and most of the answers in the mock tests are wrong. So, I’m not giving any links here for mock tests.

Tutorial Series: I have created a tutorial series specifically for this certification explaining all the concepts of Marketing Cloud.

Use the above URLs to get a special discount. Coupon Code INNERCIRCLE is added to them.

Feel free to comment if any clarification required on any topic or any question from the mock tests, I will provide the right answer.

Maintenance of Certification Credential

To maintain your Marketing Cloud Certification, you no longer need to pay 100$ and take that online yearly maintenance exam. It has been shifted to Trailhead, yes! Learn how to maintain your credential

good morning manish, I would have further questions for you on the certification.
could you tell me if the multiple choice questions are considered in percentage (example 1 in 3 = 0.33 points) or in full (example 1 in 3 = 0 points)
Thanks, if you have time could you also take a look at my other questions?
thank you for your time

Hello. It is considered in full so it is either 0 or 1. If the question asks to choose 3 options, you need to get all 3 choices right to score points for that question. If you get only 2 right, you get no points for it.

An email marketer needs a point-and-click tool to create a segment based on everyone who
lives in a five-mile radius of a specific zip code and to see an accurate count of subscribers in real
time.
What solution meets this specification?
A. SQL Query Activity
B. Contact Builder
C. Audience Builder
D. Data Filters

A marketer wants to ensure that customers on a list want to be email subscribers. Additionally, the marketer wants to minimize the number of invalid email addresses on the list, and add a level of security when using Web Collect functionality. What is the optimal way to accomplish this task?

A)Configure Web Collect to return an error message for any email address that does not conform to standard conventions

B)Add new subscribers to an automated engagement campaign, and then send a series of welcome emails based on their opens and clicks

C)Create a double opt-in campaign that requires subscribers to confirm their email address by clicking a link in an email they receive after subscribing via Web Collect

D)Send a welcome email to subscribers within 24 hours that includes a link to the website, a link to the terms and conditions page, and a customer service number

A marketer would like to install the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Connector. Where can an
installation guide be found?
A. AppExchange
B. Help and Training
Portal
C. Help.exacttarget.com
D. Code.exacttarget.com

exuseme, form answer will be C, but C is not plus enable…
salesforce update the answer??
o the answer is b?

Hi @sfdcFanBoy thank you for your help. I have another question for you.

Northern Trail Outfitter’s Quality Assurance process requires that a team of users evaluates all parameters of an email send, including Email, Subject Line, Send Classification, and other properties, prior to manually sending the email. What tool in Email Studio enables a marketer to save and execute a send manually?
A. Send Flow
B User-Initiated Email
C. Send Activity
D. Guided Send
I think it’s D but i’m not sure about the save. Can you help me maybe with an explanation? Thank you so much!

Since the question mentions Content Areas based upon subscriber attributes. AMP scripts are able to verify the stored information within the DE’s and relate with defined logic to display the relevant content.

Northern Trail Outfitters’ marketing team includes the nearest store to customers in the template of its emails. This data extension only needs to be updated when store information changes, such as when a new store opens or a store closes. How can this be achieved?
A. Create an automation to begin when Information changes on a store object using a workflow rule.
B. Create a scheduled automation to import the file on a recurring basis with store information.
C. Create a file drop automation to import the file when placed on the specified directory on the Enhanced FTP.
D. Create a file drop automation to initiate when the store’s data extension is updated via import.

I think is C. Can you please answer me with an explanation? Thank u for your help!

Hi manish, @sfdcFanboy, i have another question for you.
Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) just hired a new associate who is brand new to email
marketing to start creating and deploying the company’s monthly campaigns. NTO wants to ensure
no mistakes are made.
Which two elements of the send can be reviewed with Approvals?
Choose 2 answers
A. Hyperlinks
B. Subject Line
C. From Name
D. Send Count

Northern Trail Outfitters’ (NTO) branding guidelines require heavy use of imagery on its website, apps, emails, ads, etc. What are two ways that NTO can optimize its email design to honor branding guidelines and ensure subscribers are getting the best experience possible? Choose 2 answers A. Add background colors that match branding. B. Style alt text for when images do not display automatically. C. Use custom corporate font to match NTO brand. D. Make the email completely image based.
I think B and D but i’m not really sure. Can you please help me?
Thanks!

Answer is A & B.
Adding background colors to the template that match the brand. not only enhances the look and feel of the template but also helps the email content establish a connection with the company’s brand value in the minds of the user.

Also adding alt text helps the user to understand what the block was meant for and what it had to exactly communicate, even though it was not able to render properly. This is a way to create user-friendly emails and eliminate the chances of email being spammed or marked as spam by the user ultimately.

A company has one million subscribers. The company has a Master data extension that
contains information about its subscribers, such as Email Address, Physical Mailing Address, Phone
Number, and Loyalty information. There are 40 fields in the data extension. The data is used for
multiple daily email campaigns.
How should the data be updated?
A. A scheduled automation to import a file containing all of their subscribers.
B. A scheduled automation to occur every 15 minutes to ensure the data is current.
C. A file drop automation to execute an import every time a record is updated or
added.
D. A scheduled automation to import a nightly file of updated or changed records.

Answer should be D.
All the other options are not ideal. A is updating all the records which you don’t need to do every time. B is every 15mins, such frequent updates are not recommended. C is updating just 1 record at a time, and too frequent – waste of resources.

A customer has a Send Log they are using to track the email addresses that were sent to,
date and time of the send, and the name of the email sent for reporting purposes. Per best practice,
the customer stores 30 days of data in their Send Log and then archives the data into another data
extension that holds data for one year.
Which activity should be used to achieve the backup automatically?
A. Import File
B. Data Extract
C. SQL Query
D. Filter

Answer should be C. A simple SQL query to copy from DE to DE.
If you look at Data Extract activity definition you’ll know why – “Data extract activity creates one or more zipped files for your use outside the Marketing Cloud application. It can also be used to convert an XML file into a comma-delimited, tab-delimited, or pipe-delimited file for import into your account.”

Hi, my name is Kim and I’m new here. I’ve been sifting through all the questions and answers and I found one with confusing answers (B+C) I definitely feel that it’s a different answer, I hope someone can verify, thanks!

Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) would like to evaluate which email content customers click most frequently. The email team wants to track click behaviour for all linked hero images using the naming convention “Hero_CTA.”
What are two methods to ensure click behaviour on these images is tracked with this naming convention?
Choose 2 answers
A. Include an alias attribute in each anchor tag and populate it with “Hero_CTA.”
B. Include “Hero_CTA” in the Link Tooltip field for each link.
C. Add “Hero_CTA” to the Tracking Alias field for each link.
D. Include “Hero_CTA” in the filename for each Hero image.

IMO A + C are the correct answers. A adds the alias in HTML code, C adds it in the field in Image Properties block

A marketer wants to ensure that customers on a list want to be email subscribers.
Additionally, the marketer wants to minimize the number of invalid email addresses on the list, and
add a level of security when using Web Collect functionality. What is the optimal way to accomplish
this task?
A. Send a welcome email to subscribers within 24 hours that includes a link to the website, a link to
the terms and conditions page, and a customer service number
B. Configure Web Collect to return an error message for any email address that does not conform to
standard conventions
C. Add new subscribers to an automated engagement campaign, and then send a series of welcome 13 emails based on their opens and clicks
D. Create a double opt-in campaign that requires subscribers to confirm their email address by
clicking a link in an email they receive after subscribing via Web Collect

A customer has a Send Log they are using to track the email addresses that were sent to, date and time of the send, and the name of the email sent for reporting purposes. Per best practice, the customer stores 30 days of data in their Send Log and then archives the data into another data extension that holds data for one year.
Which activity should be used to achieve the backup automatically?

A marketer at Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) has been tasked with growing its email
subscriber audience.
Which three best practices should the marketer keep in mind while trying to acquire new email
subscribers?
Choose 3 answers
A. Tell customers why they want to receive NTO emails.
B. Set expectations on send frequency and schedule.
C. Automatically opt-in all new customers.
D. Ask for detailed demographic information.
E. Use explicit opt-in for any new web sign-ups.

Hi! No, the answers would actually be A,B and E.
– Automatically opt-in all your new subscribers would be contrary to the RGPD and wouldn’t help you get high opening/click rates since you would be sending emails to customers that don’t necessarily want them. Plus it could generate a higher bounce rate with the false email adresses.
– It can’t be D either since that asking all this information at once runs the risk of annoying your customers and losing them more than anything. Salesforce will advise you to gain that information little by little and offer incentive to get your customers to fill in their profiles later on.

A new marketing manager at Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) has been asked to evaluate
whether to use HTML Emails or Templates for weekly newsletter sends, which are created by a
marketing coordinator with limited coding ability. While NTO has HTML developers on staff, their
time is not guaranteed on an ongoing basis.
Which two characteristics of Templates would benefit NTO when creating its weekly newsletter in
Content Builder? Choose 2 answers
A. Emails can be formatted for desktop and mobile without extra coding.
B. One template can only be used for one email, maintaining brand standards.
C. HTML developers are needed to build templates, but not emails.
D. Templates provide the ability to create email messages using content blocks

Which two best practices should the customer follow to ensure marketers across the
company are taking full advantage of Content Builder?
Choose 2 answers
A. Plan for content to be used cross-channel, eliminating duplicates.
B. Create folders for each type of uploaded content.
C. Import all content up front, rather than piece by piece.
D. Optimize the way content is stored with a naming convention.

14. A marketer at Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) has been tasked with growing its email subscriber audience. Which three best practices should the marketer keep in mind while trying to acquire new email subscribers? Choose 3 answers

Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) uses link aliases within the HTML versions of its emails to
indicate where clicks occurred, even if the same URL is used multiple times within a send. A
marketing employee has been asked to pull the email addresses of all customers who clicked on the
link associated with “Main Banner Top” in NTO’s most recent newsletter.
Where can the marketer most easily find this information?
A. Tracking Job Links tab > URL ID
B. Tracking Click Activity tab > Email Overlay View
C. Tracking Overviewtab > Clicks
D. Tracking Click Actiwty tab > Link View

Not sure if this is a type of question that would asked without much details as it is incomplete. But let me try answer.

Plan is definitely one. Execute itself includes creating blocks, and building rules. But there’s nothing called as Execute in SFMC. Review & Test Send are required in general but they are not required to ‘create dynamic content’.

So, I’d say A (Plan), E (Create – blocks), D (Build Rules) and then it can be either Preview/Test Send.

I’d definitely change my answers if there are more details. It’d be great if u can add more context to the question.

An email marketer has been tasked with increasing open rates on a weekly newsletter that
currently uses a consistent, identifiable subject line: “NTO Weekly: Topics of Interest this week.”
Which two best practices should the marketer use to make the subject line more effective? Choose 2
answers
A. Include “RE:”, “FWD:”, “etc.” to get the reader’s attention.
B. A/B test the effectiveness of different subjects.
C. Keep the subject text between 50 and 100 characters long.
D. Include information relevant to the message in the subject line.

When using a mobile-optimized template, what causes the mobile layout to display?
A. The specific device that is used to view the email
B. The screen size of the device that is used to view the email
C. A subscriber attribute that dictates a mobile layout preference
D. The email client detection tracking pixel

Northern Train Outfitters wants to make sure that a First Name and Last Name are always
included when importing subscribers to a data extension. How can a marketer ensure that
subscribers are imported with data in both of these fields?
A. Make the First Name and Last name columns Primary Keys
B. Ensure the Nullable property is unchecked for the First Name and Last Name columns
C. Check the Nullable property for the First Name and Last Name columns
D. Set up a default value for the column

Answer is A or B? I dont think A because then First name and Last name both would need to be unique.. Please clarify

Answer will be B & D.
B as already mentioned by Marieta above.
D because the fields needs to have some data stored into it. Hence adding a default value helps us to eliminate blank fields and also have the advantage of adding generic salutations.

A small company, with limited resources, has started to use the Marketing Cloud. They have a
single master data extension for all of their subscribers. When a subscriber opts in to receive
communications, they will receive a monthly newsletter, weekly promotions, and a birthday email.
What is the optimal way to manage unsubscribes by communication type?
A. Create a Boolean field for each communication type in the data extension and update the Profile
Center.
B. Create suppression lists for each communication type, and associate the suppression list on the
send definition.
C. Create separate data extensions for each communication type and customize the subscription
D. Create publication lists for each communication type, and associate the publication list on the
send definition.

The marketing team would like to refresh a filtered data extension on a recurring basis, by
using a data filter named “Pref1-Tech” How can this process be automated?
A. Create a Filter Activity that selects the Pref1-Tech Data Filter, and then add the Filter Activity to an
Automation
B. Create a filtered Data Extension Activity that selects the Pref1-Tech Data Filter, and then add the
Filtered Data Extension Activity to an Automation
C. Set a refresh schedule on a new filtered data extension, and select the Pref1-Tech data filter
D. Add the Pref1-Tech Data Filter to an Automation

Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) would like to send shipping email notifications to members.
Shipping fulfillment data is included in a file which Is moved at frequent intervals to a folder on NTO’s
Enhanced FTP Account.
Which solution can be used to achieve this?
A. Triggered Email in Email Studio
B. Import Activity In Email Studio
C. File Drop Entry Source in Journey Builder
D. File Drop Starting Source in Automation Studio

Approximately 50% of Northern Trail Outfitters’ (NTO) subscribers open emails on their
mobile devices, while the remaining 50% of subscribers open their emails on their desktop. The Chief
Marketing Officer of NTO would like the emails to render well on both desktop and mobile devices,
but does not want to spend a significant amount of time developing for each environment.
What is the recommended design approach?
A. Mobile-aware Design
B. Desktop-centric Design
C. Responsive Design
D. Static Design

Northern Train Outfitters sends email order confirmations to customers who have made
online purchases.
These emails must follow the “Transactional” CAN-SPAM classification requirements. Which feature
would a marketer use to classify a send under this CAN-SPAM classification?

Q) An account has a Subscriber Key enabled, and will be providing a unique key for each
subscriber from an external system. A marketer wants to create a data extension for sending email
campaigns. What steps would the marketer take when creating the data extension? (Choose 2)
A. Check the “Is Sendable” option
B. Set the column representing the Subscriber Key as a Primary Key
C. Set the Email address column as a Primary Key
D. Relate the Email address to the Suscriber Key

Hi! I just wanted to let you know that I also cleared the Marketing Email Specialist certification this morning, and got a really good score thanks to all of you! So thank you very much for your help 🙂

Next step: Trying to clear with admin one if I can!
Thank you again for your help,

The marketing manager of NTO is interested in a/b testing emails in order to increase subscribers engagement, which two practices should the marketing manager employ. Choose two answers.
Options:
• Give at least 24 hrs. before declare a winner
• Test multiple variation concurrently
• Use a large sample size
• Offer a special discount for opening the email

50. When deploying a send to its customers, a marketing team would like to send to its own team members also. However, the team does not want the team members’ open and click behavior to affect the
tracking metrics of the send.
Which two steps must be completed when creating the data extension to address this need? Choose 2
answers
A. Mark the “Is Testable” checkbox
B. Mark the “Is Sendable” checkbox
C. Define the Send Relationship by email address
D. Set the Email Address as the Primary Key

Hey Manish,
I am pleased to inform you that I cleared the Salesforce marketing cloud email specialist exam yesterday.
Your blog help me a lot to clear this exam.
Thank you so much Manish and all of those we help me.
Now I am planning to give next exam i.e “Salesforce Marketing Cloud Consultant Certification Exam”. Please guide me how to prepare for this.
Thanks in advance.

Hi Aniket, please refer to all the questions discussed in the comments section. There are no dumps. We discuss solutions instead of purely depending on dumps. If you have any question or doubts on any topic, please feel free to share. We’ll try to answer

17. Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) is launching a monthly newsletter for its subscribers to opt in to. NTO needs to ensure CAN-SPAM compliance.
In which two ways can they avoid emails being blocked or marked as spam? Choose 2 answers

A. Include a physical mailing address of the company.
B. Use animated emojis in subject lines to draw the eye.
C. Include a “Contact Us” link in the footer.
D. Use a clear “From” name that is easily recognized.
A and C or D

Hi, the answer to this one would definitely be A and D to me. Having a “contact us” link in the footer isn’t an obligation through CAN-SPAM and wouldn’t help with being marked as SPAM whereas having a clear “From” name is a way salesforce puts forward to improve your delivrability as per the notes in @SFDCFanBoy’s chatter on best practices!

Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) needs to use a point-and-click tool to test segmentation rules and verify that the correct subscribers are included in the segment. NTO will need to automate the refreshing of the segment once it is tested. Which two tools should be used to test and configure the segment?
Options:
• Data Filter
• Filtered Group
• Filter Activity
• SQL Query Activity
I think : A C
Please tell me the correct answer for this.
I have referred below URL and now i am confused.https://salesforcedork.com/2017/06/27/using-automation-to-refresh-data-segments/